This is something I’ve been thinking about ever since the always-gracious and professional (note heavy sarcasm) Michael Arrington went on his completely ludicrous rant on TechCrunch’s decision not to honor embargoes anymore. Specifically it was a comment that was made by a ‘curious PR person’
Well isn’t that encouraging!
For someone just starting out in PR – or in my case, having experience, but new to the country and therefore starting from scratch – it is very very very difficult to establish relationships with top of the line journalists who get bombarded with pitches everyday.
I was reminded of this little exchange, albeit on a much smaller and certainly more polite scale, when I saw this Tweet from Charles Arthur, blogger and tech journalist.
As ‘kind of a big deal’ I realise that he gets a bazillion e-mails a day, but simply deleting or unsubscribing is not going to solve any problems in the long run (especially when the lazys will probably fail to unsubscribe him from their lists anyway). He’s only going to get more annoyed and the PR people are only going to become more annoyingly determined, bringing in the dreaded ‘Did you get my e-mail call?’. The sort of mentality on both sides only reinforces the bad blood that already exists between the two professions.
So where does that leave everyone?
- E-mail gets deleted
- No matter what, if you call, you’re interrupting the workflow.
- You can’t turn the tables because journalists educating PRs apparently doesn’t work either
- Twitter has been suggested, but for me personally, I’m only comfortable pitching in a direct message from my personal account. If the journalist is not following me back, I’m SOL (and if you’ve seen all the journalists on Twitter, the ratio of followers and followed for most is at least 10 to 1 and I’m willing to bet a lot of the ‘not followeds’ are PR people)
So basically, it comes down to the age-old PR whiny statement: If you don’t tell us how you want – or even whether you want – to be pitched, how are we supposed to know? Most of us are more than willing to accommodate. It’s in everyone’s best interest.
**As a side note, Charles wrote an excellent post yesterday on the relationship between PRs, journalists and clients. To be clear, my post is in no way a response to it – more so a random stream of consciousness questioning how we can get along. Every PR should read it.
6 February, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Hi Melanie,
Thank you so much for writing this. It is something I’ve been struggling with for months as I make the transition from college student to full-fledged PR pro. I try to always introduce myself to journalists first, saying “would you be interested in receiving this information?” and even those e-mails don’t receive responses.
I’d really like to get better, but I think the lazy PR people who brought this reputation to an entire industry might have ruined it for the rest of us.
Checking out the other post, now.
Take care,
Meg
6 February, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I’ve found that short, super concise emails are the best. “I read your post on _____ and was wondering if you would be interest in ______ (include link)” Then offer yourself as a contact for anything else they need. It’s certainly not foolproof but it been the most effective way for me. I haven’t phone pitched (as Plan A) in many years.
6 February, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Hmm, I can see how my tweet would be amazingly disheartening.
Let’s see. Emails from PRs break down generally into 3 categories:
1) Come and meet my client. They know about X, Y and Z.
2) Company A has announced product Y / appointment Z.
3) You wrote about subject A. My client knows about A/has a product that does A.
To which my reactions will often – though not always – be:
1) your client’s interests don’t intersect with those of my readers.
2) how nice for your client. I don’t think my readers are interested. Sorry.
3) That was then. I’m thinking about what is going to go up on the website/in the paper now.
A few – very, very few – of those emails are actually useful, with people I want to meet or speak to on the phone.
The problem for you, the PR, is that you couldn’t know what my interests are without being inside the office while we bat ideas around. Or inside my *computer* while I read it and think about what’s trending and important. Or – and this may seem radical – reading what we produce, and trying to find the things that fit into that.
But even freelance writers with years of experience find that hard – and they’re journalists, with only themselves to please. You’ve got clients to please.
I’m not saying you’ve got an impossible task. But it’s a really difficult one. And so many PR companies get it wrong that I end up deleting and deleting and deleting email. (I used to just ignore it. But it piles up. I had a burst of tidy.)
Genius blog name btw.
Charles
6 February, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Considering I get annoyed at most of the Response Source emails that go through my inbox, I feel at least a fraction of your pain. To be completely honest, I’m just glad that you can see the other side of it all. Yes, we have to please clients, but it’s also not in best best interest as a PR or as an actual person to piss anyone off. Perhaps that’s too Pollyanna of me, but I still have to believe we somehow can learn to peacefully coexist with one another.
12 February, 2009 at 9:22 am
[...] not following you. Should you ping them with an @? Ask them to follow you? I’ve stated before that I’m uncomfortable with open pitches on Twitter. There’s just something about it [...]
12 February, 2009 at 9:26 am
[...] not following you. Should you ping them with an @? Ask them to follow you? I’ve stated before that I’m uncomfortable with open pitches on Twitter. There’s just something about it [...]
22 April, 2009 at 7:51 am
I’m behind, but after reading your blog I posted the question on Linkedin. Given most of the reponses were from PR professionals and not journalists, the general idea I got was to make sure they are clear and concise. Also, develope friendships with the journalists. Because, as one said, they are more likely to do a favor for someone they know well.